Exit Stage Left
by Glittering Pegasus
Summary: Everyone assumed that Michael had married so soon in a desperate attempt to move on... No one could have guessed that we were following in the footsteps of his father's killer...


A/N: This might be kind of confusing, but I wanted to try giving a new perspective to the whole marriage thing. Hope it worked. Lol. 

Challenge elements: Baseball match, flowers, and a movie quote. 
    
    **Exit Stage Left**
    
    _We're supposed to try and be real. And I feel alone, and we're not together. And that is real. ~ Evanescence~ 'Wash it All Away' _

You haven't heard much from me, have you? Yeah, well, I tend to kind of drive people away. At least, anyone who is a co-worker friend of my husband's. They see my wedding band, hear my last name, and suddenly it's like I'm some slutty b*tch who took advantage of a grieving man and drove him to his ultimate life mistake. 

My name is Rhiannon Vaughn, formerly Rhiannon Painter. Most likely to soon be Rhiannon Painter again. So by now I'm sure you've guessed who I am. The month long wife of one Michael C. Vaughn. You hate me already. But don't worry, I'm used to it. 

What no one but my 'husband' and I know is the truth of what happened, the side of the story people never choose to listen to. But if you want to hear it, I am hear to tell. 

Michael and I met about a year ago at a baseball game. The Dodgers vs. The Phillies. He was with a friend, darker and chubbier. But I saw him, tall with sandy blonde hair and green eyes, and the friend I was with noticed me staring. She encouraged me to go over to him, talk to him. She said I had to put myself out there once in a while. 

So I did. I talked to him and could instantly tell that this was a man in pain. His tone, the things he said, the dark circles around his eyes. This was someone who had been suffering. He told me that a girl he'd been with, someone he'd obviously loved more than life itself had gone missing a year ago. 

I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to say that Michael and I clicked right away, nor did we feel some kind of unexplained attraction that told us we'd be spending the rest of our lives together. We were just two people talking, nothing more, nothing less. 

It wasn't until two weeks later that I found out our meeting had been set up, and I was to go forth with the plan of my handlers despite any sympathy I may have felt for this man. I don't really understand what the point was. I knew what I was doing, and he knew too. This was just a game, a ruse, a play to perform for everyone else. But he knew the truth, so what was my organization getting out of it? 

Nothing. Nothing but the pleasure of watching the heart of Michael Vaughn crumble. Sometimes I swear he looked so heartbroken that I thought he was going to die. But my superiors insisted every time I argued with them that no man dies of love but on the stage. 

So to everyone else, we were a married couple that wasn't all too happy. Once or twice he'd hand me a daisy or a lily while walking in the park, but that was as far as out public displays of affection went. Everyone assumed that Michael had married so soon in a desperate attempt to move on, the mistake of a man in such utter depression that he would have done anything to fill the hole inside him. No one could have guessed that we were following in the footsteps of his father's killer. 

I guess we should have had a Plan B, or at least an idea of what to do in case anything went wrong. But we'd been so convinced that this would work. We never imagined that Sydney Bristow would ever return, that she'd attempt to steal back the heart she figured I'd robbed. But in this job it's a good idea to always expect the unexpected. 

It's a classic tale. Boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, girl goes missing, boy thinks girl is dead, boy breaks down, girl returns, boy's heart is torn, boy realizes the error of his ways and he and girl live happily ever after. 

That's the way it's supposed to work. That's the way I would have liked it to work. But that's not the way things work in this life. Unless I did something about it. And somehow, the emotion I'd grown for him allowed me to make the right decision. 

I went to the CIA the night after Michael left for Hong Kong. I told them what had been going on, who I really was and who I really worked for. I didn't admit that Michael had known the truth about me all along. They would have suspected him of treason. They told him everything, and he pretended to be shocked and dismayed. 

So now, sitting in my cold and dark cell, I think about what I did, turning myself in. They say every action has an equal an opposite reaction. If that's true, I have to see it happen. My one request is that the CIA allows me to watch the reunion of the two people I sacrificed everything for. 

So they give me a small device with a screen on it, and I watch the scene play out in black and white, fuzz crackling over their words. He tells her she's been missing for two years and she breaks into sobs. He tentatively reaches out and places a hand on her shoulder. She jerks away. He ignores the gesture and wraps his arms tightly around her anyway. 

She allows it this time, sinking into his embrace, burying her face in his shoulder. He whispers to her but I can't hear what over the static. I don't need to anyway. It seems clear what he is telling her. After a few moments, she looks up and brushes off a few remaining tears. He places a finger lightly under her chin and tilts up her head toward his, and that is when, for the first time in years, I feel a genuine smile on my face. 

As the two kiss after seven hundred and thirty days of wishing and praying and wanting, I know that everything is going to be okay. I know that what I have done was right. And maybe one day, people will hear my story and think of me as more than the slutty b*tch. Maybe they won't. But I'll always know the truth, and so will he. And that's all that matters. 

Things could have turned out differently I suppose, but they didn't. And unlike I have been for most of my life and probably never will be again, I'm grateful for that. 

I pull off my white gold wedding ring and let it clatter to the floor of the cell, its smooth surface dimly glinting in the dark. It doesn't belong to me anymore. The play has ended. 

Exit stage left. 

***

A/N: Okay I know that was weird and kind of different than what I usually write, but oh well. I hope you liked it. 

Movie quotes: "No man dies of love but on the stage"~ Mansfield Park

"Things could have turned out differently, I suppose. But they didn't."~ Mansfield Park


End file.
